![]() You’re no true Parisian, you do not know your city, if you haven’t experienced its ghosts. Time works for those who place themselves beyond time. It calls for an artlessly delicate touch, a more or less unconditional love. To get to the heart of a city, to learn its most subtle secrets, takes infinite tenderness, and patience sometimes to the point of despair. Its ferment, its sorcery, its hidden life.Ī city is like a woman, with a woman’s desires and dislikes. There are places where, if you lie, or think ill, it’s Paris you disrespect. In conclusion he said, ‘I’m the biggest swindler there is, I’m prepared to be swindled myself, that’s fair enough. Then he listed, and pointed out on the map, the most notable of those key sites whose power he or his friends had experienced. ‘Well, now, you see, it’s always been the case that whenever something bad happens at the Vieux-Chene, a month later - a lunar month, that is, just twenty-eight days - the same thing happens at old La Frite’s place, but less serious. ![]() The Well, the Arbre-a-Liege On either side of the Seine, adhering closely to the line he’d drawn, the age-old tavern signs were at pretty much the same distance from the magic well. But he was still pursuing his line of thought: he dashed out to the nearby stationery shop and came back with a little basic pair of compasses made of tin. His unhibited display of brotherly affection was of childlike spontaneity. It’s a pity I’m already “beyond redemption”, even at this very moment.’ He said, ‘You know, you and I could do great things together. The “Well of Truth” as it’s been known since the eleventh century.’ ‘The centre, as you must be thinking of it, is the well of St-Julien-le-Pauvre. My turn now to let the children play with the lock. I suppose - I hope - it was in complete good faith that Alexandre Arnoux mentioned the lamp behind the apse of St-Germain-l’Auxerrois. But you don’t reveal this to just anybody. ![]() The centre of Paris, a spiral with four centres, each completely self-contained, independent of the other three. the brass plate on the parvis of Notre-Dame.’ ![]() Playing for time, I said, ‘The starting point of France’s roads. I thought this knowledge was part of a whole body of very rarefied and secret lore. Then he asked me, straight out, ‘What would you say was the true centre of Paris?’ “He insisted on clearing the table, and again devoted himself to his game of patience: piecing together the map of Paris, the bits of which he’d stuffed into the pocket of his raincoat, folded up any old how. The Gypsies were persecuted, in France and elsewhere, with cyclical regularity in a vicious, inept and stupid manner. Maybe they’ll discover that these slow and apparently aimless journeys are related to cosmic forces. Meanwhile, here’s an idea I volunteer: the day when the borders of Europe and elsewhere become, as they once were, open to the movement of nomadic tribes that some regard as ‘worrisome’, it would be interesting if researchers qualified in astronomy (yes, indeed), with calenders and terrestrial and celestial maps to hand, were to examine the routes travelled by wandering Gypsies. The sad thing is perhaps they’re not all aware of it. There are some human beings who are not bound by human laws. I knew some in Spain who could read the stars in Germany, who could heal burns in the Camargue, who tended horses and could lessen the birthing pains of both women and beasts. They return evil for evil, and good for good. “For all that, I don’t think Gypsies ought to be likened to birds of ill-omen.
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